dayton baton

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]It’s hard to believe that only 10 months ago we were sitting in one of the four rooms that made up our office on Linden Avenue late one evening and began concepting ideas for how we could share our love and appreciation for the city we call home. Namely, to create the landscape and platform to help showcase and motivate others to truly embrace exploring and discovering all the wonderful things Dayton has to offer – to date your city.

The positive response to these initial concepts has been very humbling, especially how much we’ve managed to accomplish in such a short amount of time, with so much yet to come. These efforts have paid off, and now we are charged with developing an identity for one the most exciting expansions to hit downtown in recent years.

Left to right: Josh, Baton founder Jordan Hockett, Matthew

But first, let’s take a look at what got us here.

With the rise of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram it’s never been easier to showcase what moves and inspires you, and then share it with the world. We saw this happening everyday with three Dayton-centric social media accounts who used gorgeous photos to prove that Dayton is a great American city. We contacted and met with the creators of these accounts – Dayton Baton, Daytongram and Dayton’s Best – and shared our vision with them. That Vision: Work cooperatively and our goals will be that much easier to achieve. They got it immediately. So we united them under a thematically similar brand and began concepting the various ways they could work together.

The next step was joining forces with Dayton Most Metro to provide an additional platform and unifying entity to tie these social media accounts together. Matthew and I were brought on as co-publishers and got to work on planning the redesign for the next iteration of the site to actualize our vision. The first step was building a portal that both explained who the social media accounts were, their mission, and gave them the online tools to achieve that mission. The Mission: To inject our community with positivity and self-worth, and show everyone every day a new perspective on what makes our city great.

Meeting at 5th Street

We continued to put these social media accounts in touch with other community members who shared the same ideals, which led to a meeting with Olivia Barrow, of the Dayton Business Journal. What was supposed to be a quick meetup over a drink at 5th Street Brew Pub with Jordan Hockett, Tom Gilliam, Matthew, Oliva and myself became a two hour discussion that led to the idea of developing a well-branded self esteem campaign for the city. Tentatively called “I Love Dayton,” Olivia presented the idea at the UpDayton Summit. Amazingly our collaborative idea was chosen.

Provided by Dayton Inspires

Soon a committee was formed to develop the concept and Catapult became an obvious choice to participate in both the vision for the campaign and to create the brand itself. In the end our idea for Dayton Inspires was chosen among a number of different great brand names. We then designed the logo, and worked closely with Olivia and the committee to concept and design everything from stickers, posters, temporary tattoos and even a photobooth backdrop that have been unrolled over the past two months.

During all of this we also participated in the Activated Spaces program to move our offices downtown into the Talbott Tower. Downtown is where the action is, which is where we wanted to be, and just being here has led to a tremendous amount of growth and opportunity. Our street level office lets Dayton see our creativity on a daily basis, and demonstrate that a young creative agency can succeed here.

With Batman donning the cowl in our window, he has become a mantle of inspiration for us to focus on something greater than ourselves. To absorb ourselves in our city, to give back and help change the perception of fear, apathy and doubt into a calm, renewed sense of community. Everyday we are in the thick of it and are reminded of why we chose to be here.

All of these efforts have culminated in an exciting announcement and opportunity for Catapult Creative. We have been selected to concept and create both the name and logo for the Dayton Bike Share Program. We believe this project ties in perfectly with our vision of a Dayton that’s both growing and redefining what it means to live here. It is also perhaps a key reason we were selected among some true goliaths in the industry. We are excited to bring a youthful energetic passion, outside the box solutions, and outstanding design and branding to this elemental project for downtown.

We are Dayton. Dayton is us. This must be great.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”50501″ alignment=”center” border_color=”grey” img_link_target=”_self” img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]

When it launches in spring 2015, Dayton will be one of 25+ cities across the U.S. with bike share systems.

There will be 22 bike stations within a two mile radius of downtown, with each station containing six to ten bikes – totaling more than 200 bikes.

Customers, who range from one-day users to annual subscribers, unlock the bikes and may ride to any other station or back to the original location at the end of their trip.

Made up of 9 local organizations, The Bike Share Planning Team is a fantastic example of the collaborative mindset that is so crucial to Dayton’s continued development.

There’s been a refreshing new appreciation for the value of knowing your community, and the Bike Share Planning Team has made that a primary focus for this branding effort.

We begin our journey with the Dayton Bike Share Program this week with an excitement fueled by fresh ideas and a sense of ownership that this must be great not only for the program and for our business, but for the citizens of this city we love.

I look forward to taking the first ride around this spring, and seeing a much more connected downtown.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]